Craigslist Spam
I came across three different posts today talking about spam on Craigslist. What I found most interesting about all the stories is the fact that no one seemed to get the SEO connection.
The increase in affiliate related spam everyone’s seeing is due in large part to Google’s infatuation with the Craigslist domain. Google routinely puts Craigslist pages on the first page for search terms that return between 1-2 million results. And if you throw a little link love at a Craigslist post, you can get it to pop for phrases even more competitive.
If you still don’t think its being done for SEO value, ask yourself why someone would waste their time posting affiliate products on the small market CL sites like Albany, Asheville, or Allentown? Those sites don’t come close to having enough human traffic to make it worth the effort. But what they do have is a post life of 45 days, instead of the 7 day limit found in the major markets. That means the post has a smaller chance of getting flagged, and it can last long enough to get indexed and listed in Google. Since Google doesn’t discriminate based on the size of the city, it becomes the best place to post.
Stupid Things We Say – Part 2
Last St. Patrick’s Day, I had a couple of cocktails and wrote a post called “Stupid Things We Say.” That post contained some examples of really stupid press releases that were distributed through PR Web by companies in the SEO space. At the time I wrote it, I was just trying to kill some time with a little light-hearted humor. Although the irritation these press releases caused was real, they didn’t really have a negative impact on my daily routine because I don’t rely on press release distribution sites as a source for “industry news.”
Jimmy Wales - Google Killer
Can Jimmy Wales Really Kill Google?
I doubt it. But it’s been fun reading some of the ridiculous posts that are all over the web right now. The first one I came across this morning was a post by Isabel Wang titled:
Wikipedia Founder Launches Human Powered Search Engine; Goodbye to SEO?
Jimmy is going to kill Google and SEO? Now that’s a post I needed to read.
Unfortunately, Isabel must have forgotten to post the part about SEO. Not a single mention of it.
Then I moved on to TechCrunch. They got me to click and read because they had an “exclusive screen shot” of Jimmy’s Google killing app. Now that is something I needed to see. But it turns out that all they really had was a picture of a mediocre “MSN Quality” SERP with some Adwords ads and a few wiki tags thrown in at the top.
Are you kidding me? That SERP is what’s going to kill Google?
Then I surfed on over to Jimmy’s site. He’s got a message posted on the homepage telling everyone that TechCrunch is full of crap. That screen shot has nothing to do with his top secret Google killer. (Of course, he doesn’t provide any information about the real project. In order to get that, you need to subscribe to his mailing list).
I certainly hope he’s telling the truth. I know if I was Amazon and I’d just invested a bunch of cash, I’d be pretty pissed to find out the “great idea” was to use Nutch to crawl all the external links in the Wiki….
Frog Talk Part 2 - Gord Speaks on Behalf of Searchers
While we’re busy arguing organic vs. ppc from a marketer’s point of view, Gord was putting together a great post about actual search user behavior. Definitely worth a read.
Look, David Pasternak can ring the funeral bell for organic all he wants, but the fact is, it’s not his call. It’s the user’s. Yahoo has actually done exactly what he and Kevin are predicting. They’ve moved organic down the page, jamming more sponsored on the top. Based on Did It’s comments, this should be good for the user, right? It should be more relevant, pushing the "spam" down below the fold. Wrong. Google kicked Yahoo’s ass in user experience in our latest study by every metric we looked at. And they’re definitely winning in the big picture, including stock prices. The difference. About 14% of Yahoo’s screen real estate (at 1024 by 768 pixels) was reserved for top organic. 33% of Google’s real estate went for top organic.
My only real complaint with Gord’s post is the fact that he’s missing an R in Guerrilla. 
The Half-Truths of Talking Frogs
When Dave Pasternack first began running his mouth off about the death of organic SEO, I decided it was best to refrain from commenting. I came to that decision in large part due to the amount of respect I have for Kevin Lee. Kevin’s an extremely intelligent and savvy guy. He has also been in the game a long time, and he is clearly the pioneer of modern day ppc marketing.
Adam Lasnik on Duplicate Content
The subject of duplicate content has to be in the top 3 in terms of questions I hear at SEO conferences. And it is also in the top 3 in terms of most misunderstood topics. For those of you confused about duplication issues, take a moment to read Adam’s post. While there isn’t really anything earth shattering in the post, it does provide a great overview of the issue and also explains the differences between duplication filtering and duplication penalties.
The Joys of Parenthood
My kids have been bitten by the YouTube bug. I’m sure this is just the first of many stellar video productions to come.
They make me so proud…
Blog Tagged
I can’t believe I gave into this…..
I know there are quite a few people who already know this stuff, (everyone who was at my birthday party and got to watch the video my wife made) but I figure that there’s enough that don’t for it to count.
Credit Where Credit is Due
Are we really having this conversation?
This post is a great example of what happens when you are under the pressure to blog a dozen times a day. What should have been a one-line post that said “stop whining and get back to work” Has turned into a big “controversy” and a long-winded discussion about how to protect your “intellectual property rights.”
Google Funding Terrorism?
If you haven’t heard this story yet, don’t worry. I’m sure it will be all over the place by tomorrow morning. I wouldn’t even be surprised if it made tomorrow’s evening news.